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Translation - English School Policies
1. Focus on students and normalize teaching processes.
1. Provide education without discrimination, but with attention to individuals’ aptitudes. Students’ needs are considered important and taken seriously, with the hope of bringing up each student.
2. Group students in normalized classes and improve the quality of teaching, so as to realize the ideal of providing equal opportunity in education.
2. Develop students’ capacity to have an international view while being grounded in domestic circumstances.
1. Promote native education to cultivate students’ appreciation of national history and culture, as well as to bring along pluralistic learning.
2. Embrace the arrival of electronic age, emphasize the education of information technology and enhance students’ ability to use modern technology.
3. Strengthen English teaching, plan and promote the teaching of a second foreign language in order to broaden students’ international horizon and foster global perspective.
3. Affirm students’ development in accordance with individuals’ personalities, but also consider the education of sociability.
1. Utilize a wide range of different teaching activities and a pluralistic mode of evaluation to advance a balanced development of Five Virtues, and stimulate and unleash students’ potentials.
2. Underscore the cultivation of students’ collective spirit, together with their capability to participate in group work and to learn how to solve problems.
English to Chinese: Obama and the N.S.A.: Why He Can’t Be Trusted General field: Social Sciences Detailed field: Other
Source text - English Obama and the N.S.A.: Why He Can’t Be Trusted
By John Cassidy
From The New Yorker (Jan 16, 2014)
Courtesy of reports in the Times and elsewhere, we already pretty much know what restrictions on the surveillance state President Obama is going to announce in a speech planned for Friday: very few. Far from taking the National Security Agency to task for the flagrant breaches of individual privacy that Edward Snowden has revealed, Obama is set to reject some of the main recommendations contained in a report by his own Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, which was itself hardly a radical document.
The news reports say that Obama has rejected the Review Group’s main recommendation, which was to end the N.S.A.’s bulk collection of metadata, such as the phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans. The panel, which issued a long report in December, said the N.S.A. should continue to have access to these records under the auspices of the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, but it said that the data should be held by the phone companies, or by a third party. Having thrown out this suggestion, Obama is set to leave the current system in place and hand its ultimate fate over to Congress, which is tantamount to doing nothing.
Assuming the reports are right, Obama won’t dismantle a single N.S.A. program, not even those that have been involved in spying on the leaders of America’s allies and hacking into the databases of companies like Google and Facebook without any court approval. He won’t end the practice by which the N.S.A and other government agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, can obtain access to Americans’ data records simply by issuing a so-called National Security Letter, which doesn’t require the rubber stamp of the FISA court.
“If the speech is anything like what is being reported,” Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Times, “the President will go down in history for having retained and defended George W. Bush’s surveillance programs rather than reformed them.” Evidently, the President’s only concessions to privacy concerns will be the establishment of a public advocate in the FISA court, the introduction of new rules modestly restricting the number of metadata records that the N.S.A. can look at, and the recognition that overseas citizens have some limited privacy rights.
It is frequently reported that Obama, a former lecturer in constitutional law, has been shocked to learn that so many Americans don’t trust him on this issue. A front-page piece in today’s Times, by Peter Baker, repeats this suggestion, quoting his advisers. But isn’t the public’s skepticism perfectly justified? Having run for President in 2008 as a strident critic of the Bush Administration’s intelligence ambitions, and not hesitating to label some of its domestic spying programs illegal, the President has emerged as the most prominent enabler and defender of the current system.
Opinion polls show that almost two-thirds of Americans don’t like the federal government collecting data about online communications and Internet-browsing histories. The President says it’s necessary to protect the national interest. Technology companies express outrage about the N.S.A. breaking into their data centers and collecting information at will. The President does nothing to stop it. Civil-liberties advocates say that, at the very least, intelligence and law-enforcement agencies should have to seek court approval before they can order telephone and Internet companies to hand over personal information. Obama, according to the Times, has “decided not to require court approval in every case, but might still require it in some cases.”
In his speech on Friday, the President will probably follow his usual tack and seek to portray himself as a reasonable man hewing to the middle ground between opposing views. In this instance, though, such a depiction doesn’t withstand inspection.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, whom Obama appointed to the Supreme Court, is a moderate. She has questioned the official line that phone and Internet logs, as business records, aren’t covered by the Fourth Amendment right to privacy. In a 2012 case, she wrote, “I would ask whether people reasonably expect that their movements will be recorded and aggregated in a manner that enables the Government to ascertain, more or less at will, their political and religious beliefs, sexual habits, and so on.” Patrick Leahy, the Democratic Senator from Vermont, is a moderate. He has co-sponsored a bill that would end the N.S.A.’s bulk collection of metadata. Anne-Marie Slaughter, the former director of policy planning at the State Department, is a moderate. She has called Snowden a “whistle-blower.”
It would be a bit of a stretch to describe all five members of the president’s Review Group as moderates on this issue: one of them, Michael J. Morell, is a former acting director of the C.I.A. I noted last month, when the Review Group’s report was published, that it didn’t go far enough in many areas, such as restricting the N.S.A.’s hacking, and preventing it from spying on aid agencies and other harmless international groups. But it did confront the central issue of whether the government should routinely requisition the personal communications records of virtually every American. And it acknowledged the obvious: “some of the authorities that were expanded or created in the aftermath of September 11th unduly sacrifice fundamental interests in individual liberty, personal privacy, and democratic governance.”
Obama used to make this argument all the time. But when Snowden presented him with the chance to do something about it, he didn’t do very much. Why not? One possibility is that he was always more sympathetic to the Bush Administration’s policies than he let on, and he was just using the civil-liberties argument to gee up his liberal base. Perhaps, as Baker suggests, sitting in the Oval Office and having access to daily intelligence reports changed his views. Or maybe he fears being second-guessed if he makes substantial reforms and there’s another terrorist attack.
The second and third explanations sound the most plausible. In this area, as in others, the President is adopting a safety-first attitude. From his perspective, that’s understandable. Some, though not I, would say it’s justifiable. But please, let’s not hear any more about how we can trust him to protect our privacy.
Translation - English Economic Daily 3rd Nov 2013
Cultural Enterprises Looking for “Suitors”
By Cao Haitao
From BG Capital
Mergers and acquisitions of cultural enterprises are up recently, and the buyouts by listed cultural enterprises especially stand out. However, as the tide of mergers and acquisitions gains momentum, companies with their core businesses in culture are in tight supply. Inherently, cultural industries need more creativity and a profound artistic background. For business executives, the transition from a core business to an integrated and strategic venture is a process. If the process is overly accelerated, enterprises will lose their built-in advantages.
In fact, the best timing for an enterprise to initiate lateral mergers and acquisitions is when the enterprise is in a leading position within its original industry, and when the action is demanded by strategic development. At present, a premium that is more than tenfold or even tens of times higher than the original is rationalized by acquirers mostly on the basis that “the valuation of underlying assets is higher than the appreciation of the book-values of net assets; businesses have been growing rapidly in recent years; revenues and profits are rising rapidly; there’s a great prospect for market development”. However, in reality, the rapid growth of large cultural businesses is dependent on multiple factors. A continuous rapid growth of cultural enterprises is not realistically possible. Regardless whether it is a good online game, a publication, a film or a television programme that possesses an explosive momentum, it can’t sustain rapid growth over the long term.
For example, in the games industry, products generally have a life-cycle of three to five years. After game products in the market reach the end of their lifecycles, the profits from them will tend to decrease. This year, mergers and acquisitions of game enterprises, especially those of mobile-games enterprises, involve obvious speculation based on ideas alone. If those mobile games enterprises don’t have a variety of excellent products to ensure their profits, are their mergers and acquisitions any different from gambling?
The integration of the animation industry also started to emerge. However, animation requires a slow pace for fine workmanship. Even with mergers and acquisitions masterfully executed, the business still mainly relies on the original influence and content to expand its advertising and sale of derivative products. There has been an influx of venture capital into the anime industry over the past few years, but with few successes. Several leading products of China Digital Animation are still in a temporary state of overdraft. The key problems of the animation industry are the lack of originality, and enormous expenditure during production and broadcasting. Therefore, there is an urgent need for animation industry to integrate with broadcast channels or other related enterprises in the industry chain, so as to overcome the difficulties one faces when operating independently.
The issue for the film industry is: what is popular keeps changing. It is Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons the most popular movie in this year, it was Lost in Thailand the most popular a year ago, Love is not Blind two years ago, and Let the Bullets Fly three years ago. Those films have completely different production teams and casts. Can we assume that Chinese movies have begun an era of mergers and acquisitions when the box office of one single local movie breaks the record, when nowadays Chinese films’ total box-office is about to reach over 30 billion yuan, when we see Wanda Group’s acquisition of AMC Theatres, when China Media Capital and Hollywood joined hands to build an Oriental Dream Factory in Shanghai, and when Galloping Horse Film & TV Production purchased the top American special effects company Digital Domain? Not really. This is because the content of films is still in a state of cooperation while mergers and acquisitions mostly focus on the management of the industry value chain. However, merger and acquisition related to the management of film-industry value chain happens to be the breakthrough point for a less risky way of having mergers and acquisitions of films.
With the appearance of problems such as having limitations of the business model, a rising cost of doing business during this year and gradually increasing account receivables, how can profits and assets of enterprises be evaluated in a more reasonable way? If this year is said to be the time of overzealous mergers and acquisitions for cultural enterprises, the following three years will be a stage for erupting problems. The cultural industry in China must go through such trials and errors to find a more appropriate path of growth. But this process will involve a great deal of pain.
China’s cultural enterprises became available to private capital relatively late. So the owners’ strategies and attitudes towards capitals need to go through integration. Right now, the age of the owners of private cultural enterprises that were listed in the first wave of IPO is around fifty. Although it’s still too early for them to search for successors, these owners are becoming less motivated. The succession and replacement by younger executives will have an impact on communications and collaborations with leaders of acquired enterprises, and the specifics of the impact are uncertain.
Due to the low IPO activities, a growing number of prospective IPO companies are looking actively for buyers, influenced by factors such as pressure from shareholders or cash flow. But should an acquired party be acquired? Who would be the most suitable “suitor”? In fact, most of these prospective IPO companies are gambling in actively looking for buyers. They are gambling on IPO activities remaining stalled in the near term, and gambling on the higher stocks of listed companies. Therefore, acquired enterprises should consider not only about the amount of “dowry” and premium, but also about the degree of their strategic integration, cooperative understanding, and whether both parties can continuously materialize their value in the capital markets.
Having mergers and acquisitions in a large scale is a trend for the cultural industry. And it is similar to the development in the western countries. The number of comprehensive cultural entertainment groups will increase over time, and horizontal and vertical integration of the cultural industry will also be gradually diversified. Films & televisions and mobile games are the two industries with the highest numbers of mergers and acquisitions during the first three quarters of the year 2013. But in the future, there will be more integration in areas such as publishing, advertisement media, the Internet, and design. A diverse entity is often an effective way to make cultural enterprises bigger and stronger. "The best way to predict the future is to create the future". Although the trend of having mergers and acquisitions in the cultural industry has started, enterprises should not be carried away by it. Mergers and acquisitions involve both risks and opportunities. Only through overcoming troubles, learning lessons, as well as bearing a great deal of pain can cultural enterprises find a right path to prosperity.
English to Chinese: Nelson Mandela funeral: A final farewell as Madiba is buried at his ancestral home General field: Social Sciences Detailed field: Other
Source text - English Nelson Mandela funeral: A final farewell as Madiba is buried at his ancestral home
By Kim Sengupta
From The Independent (Sunday 15 December 2013)
The wind blew gently through the valleys, the sun shone, apple blossoms floated in the air as Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was laid in his final resting place, the earth of the Transkei from where he had sprung.
The last acts commemorating the life and death of probably the most famous man in the world were serene and peaceful, in sharp contrast to the tumult, rancour and extraordinary international attention of the last 10 days.
Instead the ceremony at Qunu, where Madiba, as his fellow countrymen and women call him, had spent much of his youth, was about remembrance of things past, looking back to a time of unity, solidarity and hope. The disillusionment with current politics – so publicly expressed in the relentless barracking of Jacob Zuma as he tried to give his keynote speech at last week’s memorial – was kept very much at a distance.
Perhaps as a precaution, President Zuma began not with a speech, but a song, the haunting and lovely “Thina Sizwe” or “We the Nation” – a revolutionary hymn no one was going to boo.
Graça Machel and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Madiba’s widow and his former wife, were among the first to join in, both wiping away tears, as hundreds of people followed, lifting their voices and filling the vast marquee where they had gathered.
For the third time in as many days, President Zuma appeared to acknowledge that there were causes for resentment. Addressing the departed leader, he said: “Your long walk to freedom has ended in a physical sense. Our own journey continues, we have to ensure the poor and working class truly benefit from fruits of democracy you had fought for. We have to ensure we deliver a decisive blow to poverty, to continue working to build the kind of society you worked tirelessly to construct.”
In truth, however, there was little danger that the chaotic scenes at Soweto’s football stadium in front of 91 world leaders would begin again. The mood was altogether different, one of avoiding confrontations: the controversy over the alleged lack of invitation to Desmond Tutu, an old friend of Mr Mandela, had been resolved, with the Archbishop making the journey to the graveside alongside fellow clerics.
US President Barack Obama had been the star at the memorial service in Johannesburg last week. Prince Charles and Prince Albert of Monaco, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Oprah Winfrey and Sir Richard Branson, the actors Idris Elba and Forest Whitaker, came to pay their respects. Also present were European political movements which had given support in darkest times, such as the Basque separatists, and Sinn Féin, represented by Gerry Adams.
But none of them were expected to speak. Those who did were all African, and most of them had known the founder of modern South Africa for many of his 95 years, which were marked by the number of candles under a portrait of him. The current leaders of Tanzania and Malawi, who had not known him for that long, stressed how he had been an inspiration in breaking the chains of colonialism, and former comrades in arms in the African National Congress (ANC) recalled the years of struggle.
There were reminders of sacrifices made to win fundamental rights from an often vicious racist regime. One of the most poignant addresses was given by Ahmed Kathrada, who had been with Mr Mandela for 26 of the 27 years of his incarceration in Robben Island. He recalled “the tall, healthy and strong man, the boxer; the prisoner who easily wielded the pick and shovel at the lime quarry”. Visiting him just before his death, he found “this giant of a man, helpless and reduced to a shadow of his former self. He tightly held my hand until the end of my brief visit. It was profoundly heartbreaking.”
Speaking to Mr Mandela directly, he continued: “It is up to the present and next generations to take up the cudgels where you have left off. It is up to them to deepen our democracy, defend our constitution, eradicate poverty, eliminate inequality, fight corruption; above all, they must build our nation and break down the barriers that all still divide us.”
Mr Kathrada had regarded Mr Mandela as “Madala”, an older brother, he said, and the late Walter Sisulu, another giant of the ANC, as a father. “Now they are both gone, I don’t know what to do, my life is in a void, I don’t know who to turn to,” said the redoubtable 84-year-old campaigner, a man whose determination and fire was admired by Madiba. His voice trembled as he spoke.
Kenneth Kaunda, the President of Zambia, whose state was a vital source of support to South African liberation movements, drew laughter by repeatedly referring to Afrikaners as “Boers”, a word not considered suitable in the politically correct lexicon at a time when the theme is one of reconciliation and forgiving the past. He spoke of the hypocrisy of the apartheid rulers, preaching Christianity, while keeping fellow men and women in subjugation, and went on to contrast it with Mr Mandela’s own Christian values.
However, although the ceremony was Christian, the funeral was steeped in the rituals of the former President’s Xhosa tribal heritage. He was due to be buried at noon, “when the sun is at its highest and the shadow at its shortest”, Cyril Ramaphosa, deputy leader of the ANC, had said during the proceedings.
This was missed because the event, like every other in the last week, overran. But there were other customs of the Thembu clan, to whose royalty the Mandela family are related, which are said to have been adhered to. An ox was slaughtered, and Mandela’s body was wrapped in a lion skin and told what is being done to it, while elders communed with the spirit.
My BA in English Studies has laid, for me, a solid foundation related to English language and Chinese-English translation. During my final year of undergraduate study, I worked as an assistant translator and was a major contributor to the translation, into Chinese, of the book by Jon Krakauer - Where Men Win Glory. Furthermore, MA in Translation Studies equipped me with advanced skills and knowledge in the field of translation.
My previous internship as an English teacher in a private training school and the learning experience in the last academic year as an MA TESOL student helps me in building skills to teach, to give speeches, to negotiate and communicate with clients, to identify clients’ needs, and to work with both students and colleagues.
My extra-curriculum activities at Durham University have given me the opportunities to further develop my skills to work with people. In academic years 2012-13 and 2013-14, I was elected as the Postgraduate Representative of SCR (Senior Common Room) Executive Committee and the Chair of SCR in St Aidan’s College, Durham University. At present, I have the responsibility of interpreting the constitution, organizing Executive Committee meetings & General meetings, and coordinating the various SCR officers.
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